


Another Chance

by BeatriceOverWall



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Multi, Possible Character Death, Possible Romance, probably diverges from canon alot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeatriceOverWall/pseuds/BeatriceOverWall
Summary: A group of very different survivors are stuck in a world full of horrors. They have to work together to escape, and perhaps find out things about themselves that should have stayed buried...
Kudos: 3





	Another Chance

"Nea, wait! Don't you hear that?"  
Nea paused for a second, listening intently, before shrugging. "Probably just your paranoia again, Claud. I can't hear anything. Now, come help me with this gen!"  
She watched in slight amusement as Claudette crept out of her locker hiding place. The girl was too nervous for her own good; her trembling hands had alerted the killer to their location too many times to count! Still, two was better than one, and without Claudette, Nea knew she would have been dead long ago.  
Taking a quick look around her, Nea set down her toolbox and got to work on the generator, with Claudette following shortly after. They had what Claudette called a "symbiotic relationship." Basically, Nea was the tech-savvy one of the pair, and Claudette was there to heal her when she got over confident.  
"I don't get why you're so nervous," Nea started, narrowly avoiding short-circuiting the wires and letting the killer know their exact location. "-I mean, we've been doing this for what, a couple months? A year? And we've always had each others backs, haven't we?"  
She looked to the other side of the generator, where Claudette looked less than convinced. Plus, she seemed about five seconds away from telling her to shut up- she wasn't big on the small talk, preferring to keep an ear out for any suspicious sounds nearby.  
That was why it surprised Nea a little when she actually made the effort to speak.  
"It's not anything to do with me trusting you. More to do with the whole, not wanting to be skewered on a hook again thing, you know?" The generator exploded into sound as she failed a skill check, making the healer squeal in fear and head towards the nearest locker.  
Nea stopped her with an arm across her chest. "No, that's the first place they look. Let's get outta this house, hide in the bushes 'til they get distracted." She didn't mention that the distraction was probably going to be another person trapped in this hell-scape, just like them.  
Figured Claudette didn't need the added pressure in her life. 

Nodding slowly, Claudette followed her outside, behind a crumbling brick wall, which gave Nea a perfect vantage point for looking out for the killer. The person chasing them was always changing. At first it was a guy with a chainsaw, then one that could turn invisible on command. Nea had learned long ago that it was better to know who you were fighting before they caught sight of you. The killers all had different attacks, and she had learned through practice how to dodge some of them.  
Ignoring Claudette's frantic whispers to get down, Nea peered in to the abandoned shack, waiting for her first glimpse of the killer. She needn't have bothered though, because when they heard that oh so familiar eery humming, they caught each other's eyes with identical looks of horror.  
Their hearts were racing and beating so loudly Nea didn't know how the Russian woman couldn't hear them for herself. Maybe the plastic rabbit ears she was wearing obscured her hearing. As they watched, transfixed by the tall figure, a large boot shot out from under the killer's gypsy skirt, and destroyed any and all progress they had made on the generator. Nea winced in annoyance as well as fear. Now they would have to spend even more time repairing it!  
If they even lived that long, her brain reminded her, as the humming grew nearer, and a bright red light could be seen just beyond the brick wall. Nea made to get ready to run, to at least lead the monster away from Claudette, when said girl shook her head wordlessly. "What?" Nea mouthed, gesturing to where the killer now seemed to be loitering, waiting for them to show themselves.  
"Not yet." Claudette mouthed back, holding up a hand and counting soundlessly down to five.  
When the last finger went down, the humming had gotten farther away, in search of another broken generator. Safe for the moment, Nea turned and looked at her partner in shock. "How did you know to do that?"  
The killer seemed far enough away for the moment, so Nea rose into her usual shambling walk, holding out a hand and pulling Claudette up with her. The healer seemed embarrassed by the praise and bit at her nails as she answered.  
"Simple. All the killers we've met so far have had a decreased field of vision to us- if we stand in the bushes, or even stand slightly out of their line of sight, they can't see us." Claudette took off her glasses and polished them self-consciously on her blood-stained shirt. "Plus, it was only a matter of time before someone messed up with the wiring."  
Nea didn't know whether to be astonished or proud. So she decided to be both, and throw in a side-hug for good measure. "See, stuff like this is how we've stayed alive for so long!" 

But the good moment was cut short by a scream not far enough in the distance. Nea gulped, then, seeing the dread on Claudette's face, straightened herself up to her full height.  
"That...that sounded like Dwight." She managed, only barely succeeding in keeping the croak out of her voice.  
Sure, Nea had always thought Dwight was a bit egotistical and boring, but that didn't mean he deserved to die...right?

"Hey, come on, don't lose hope, he could still be alive. We've escaped worse things, right?" For once it was Claudette who was doing the comforting.  
But she didn't sound hopeful. And the little unsure attempts at comforting pats just marked how uncomfortable Claudette was with the handling of feelings. That was part of why they got on so well- no lovey dovey talks about feelings, no small-talk, no unwarranted affection. Every word that came out of Claudette's mouth had a purpose, carefully calculated and deduced for the maximum effect. 

"Well, we should probably use his death as a distraction, right? It's what Dwight would have wanted." Or maybe not. The comforting pats disappeared just as soon as they had started, and Claudette was working on the generator again with more confidence than she'd had before someone had gotten brutally murdered. The girl was an enigma, truly. Together, and with the killer far away on the other side of the expanse, they made short work of the generator, sprinting away from the booming sound it made when it came back online.  
"Why-do...you think-they have...humph- those noises?" Nea and Claudette had developed a habit of talking while running that was as good a way as any to chat without getting found loitering in the same place all the time. As Nea hopped through the window of the big mansion in the middle of the grounds, Claudette entered through the door, seeming ponderous as they sneaked up the stairs together.  
"Why do the generators make such a loud noise? Probably something to do with the mechanics. Or maybe the killer did something to them so they could be alerted when we progress?" Their hearts beat faster automatically as the humming drew closer, before once again fading away.  
"Would not put it past them. Somehow I doubt these psychos care much about being fair. Plus, we've seen our fair share of crazy things these past few months, I don't think anything could surprise me at this point."  
Except probably the wallop to the arm Claudette gave her when she finished her sentence. "What the-"  
"I can't believe you just said that! Everyone knows that when you say "Oh, nothing could surprise me anymore" that something always comes around to surprise you- that's horror 101!" Claudette whisper-shouted, as they rounded the corner into a room decorated in many different kinds of animal furs of varying degrees of taste. 

"Sorry...didn't realize you were such a horror fan." Nea flopped down onto a mink pelt carpet, causing a huge cloud of dust to rise up, much to Claudette's dismay. "I'm- ugh, i'm not. It's common knowledge though. And even if I had been a horror fan prior to whatever this is, I definitely wouldn't be anymore."  
Seeming to swallow her pride, she sat down on a wooden chair covered in fox fur pelts, and shuddered.  
"We probably shouldn't be sitting around with an armed and dangerous killer on the loose." Nea observed, making no attempt at moving.  
Claudette evidently felt the same way as she nodded distractedly, sinking down onto her chair with a hum. They had been fighting for survival for days on end now, with only snatches of sleep to tide them over. There wasn't much of a chance of the huntress coming in there to find them since there were no generators around. Plus, she didn't know if she would be able to get up again without at least a few minutes of shut-eye. Blearily, Nea looked around them, assessing the premises for danger, then she shrugged. They'd slept in worse places. Wearily lifting herself to her feet, she poked Claudette into rising to her feet.  
"Come on now, you know the drill. Secure all the exits and entrances, blah blah blah. If the barricades won't stop them at least the sound of her breaking through will be enough to wake us up." Together, once she had managed to pull Claudette out of her chair, they pushed a bookcase in front of the door into the room. There was also an indoor window that the killer could conceivably climb through, that they blocked with a stack of chairs and a broken lamp. Just enough of a barricade to warn them of invaders as they slept.  
"So...what are we gonna do about that?" Ah. Yes, there was still the matter of the gaping hole in the wall leading to the outside world.  
"Well, it is letting in a bit of a draft, but I think we can probably handle it." She hedged, groaning at Claudette's raised eyebrow. "Listen, the huntress can't fly, she won't be able to get in that way. We, however, can use it to escape." Claudette still looked doubtful. "It's a long way down. Hard to run when both your legs are broken."  
The lack of sleep was making Nea cranky and she fought the urge to snap at her companion.  
"Nah, it's all about how you fall. I've done it loads of times. Escaping from cops, escaping from serial killers- basically the same thing anyway."  
Nea could see a war waging in Claudette's eyes. On one side was her ceaseless paranoia, a need to know everything about her surroundings and how they could be used against her, and on the other, exhaustion. The two seemed to have pretty equal footing, until Claudette's eyes narrowed, and she pointed out of the hole. "What about those axes she throws? Sometimes they're pretty accurate. We could wake up as pin cushions." Following the way her arm was pointing, Nea had to agree, it seemed all to easy for the huntress to rain hell on them from miles away. The problem was; how could they deal with it?  
As with every complicated problem she came across that didn't involve mechanics, parkour or a willingness to fight anything, she turned to Claudette expectantly. She did that thing where she ran her fingers through her hair and frowned at the knots that were forming there. It was Claudette's thinking stance, and Nea didn't dare interrupt her when she got this way. After all, if she didn't figure out a way to deal with this problem they'd not be sleeping tonight either.  
"Alright, I think I've got it. But i'll have you know, for the record, that I hate this plan." Nea inwardly cheered for the upcoming sleep. But it wouldn't do to seem too excited, so she simply answered with a shrug. "It's your plan, dude."  
Rolling her eyes in a way that made it clear Claudette knew exactly what she was doing, the healer grabbed two of the larger furs from the ground and handed one (zebra print) to Nea. She did not like where this was going. "You know dressing people up as animals only gets them out of dangerous situations in TV, right?"  
But Claudette seemed too pissed off at herself for coming up with whatever her plan was to argue.  
As Nea stared, she lay on the floor near a corner and covered herself completely with furs until you couldn't tell she had been in the room at all. "Oh, so that's why they call you Blendette..." Nea chuckled as Claudette raised her middle finger out of her makeshift cocoon. "Well, might as well give it a try. At this point i'd kill for some sleep."  
"Don't chance your luck." Claudette mumbled, already half- asleep. "I always do." Nea replied, covering herself head to toe in furs and falling almost instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep. Funny how she didn't spare a thought for the crazed murderer stalking them just outside. That's what a lack of sleep tends to do to you. Also, she had been confused about the whole sleeping deal when she had first appeared in the abyss, almost a year ago now. You would think that in a world full of fear and blood and death that nightmares would be rife, but no. She hadn't had one since arriving. On the one hand it was a relief, on the other, it seemed to signify that they'd already hit the rock bottom of horror. Now there was nowhere to go but up. She for one was looking forward to how their situation was going to improve. Maybe they would get actual food for once, instead of eating whatever suspicious meats they found, or gobbling up some of the unfulfilling corn from the field to eat on the run.

It had been so long since she'd even seen a donut...She woke up drooling.  
And with her heart beating like crazy.  
Instinctively, she looked for Claudette to see if she was alright, but her friend was nowhere to be seen.  
"Claudette?" She risked a whisper into the darkness, feeling her way over to where Claudette had stored her flashlight. It flickered weakly, with only a few minutes of battery left. It would have to do. Shining the light around the room, Nea frowned as she saw all the barricades still intact. If she hadn't been running from the killer, where was she?


End file.
